Canarsie Canary Rubber Powered Free Flight Airplane Part 2

The Canarsie Canary In Flight

The video above is of the Canarsie Canary I built using the plans from the Don Ross book Rubber Powered Model Airplanes. My previous post shared some of the construction of this model. I mentioned the first few flights were encouraging, but subsequent flights continued to get worse. This was because the propeller bracket was slowly tipping downward with each winding of the rubber band. I shimmed the bracket and the plane flies great!

Moving on to the next plane in the book. The Canarsie Courier. My model of this plane still isn’t flying as it should. I’m pretty sure I need to add weight to the nose, even though the weight of the plane is balanced as it should be. In the meantime I will share a little of my experience working through the book Rubber Powered Model Airplanes.

My Introduction to Building Balsa Airplanes

When I recently made the decision to start the hobby of building model airplanes I started with research. Despite how long this pastime has been around I quickly learned there isn’t a thorough Beginner’s Guide available for the novice. There is a wealth of information online but it assumes the reader has building experience and an understanding of the terminology. Because I am most interested in free flight rubber powered airplanes I’ve started with the aptly titled book Rubber Powered Model Airplanes by the late Don Ross.

The book is a fantastic introduction to the hobby and shares a wealth of tips and information for every newcomer. It isn’t, however, without shortcomings. The book instructs the reader to read the text multiple times and to have a complete understand of the plans before building the projects. There are many disparities throughout the text and illustrations which directly contradict each other. According to the author the plans are drawn in various scales to improve the reader’s competency with model plans. However, the plans don’t match.

Canarsie Courier pylon from plans

The plans for this pylon are taken directly from the Canarsie Courier plans. Here the pylon illustration on the right is reduced to match the illustration on the left. It’s not hard to notice the illustrated height is different between the two, also no height measurement is provided in the plans or the text. Another inconsistent example is the length of the motor stick. The plan stipulates a length of eighteen inches; if the plans are properly enlarged they motor stick is actually drawn to a length of seventeen inches.

I assume the plane will fly, to some degree, regardless of the length chosen by the modeler. However, this is a book for beginners. I’ve already learned enough to know these planes are tricky to build and fly with meticulous effort. It’s easy to become frustrated when inconsistencies such as these are discovered.

Therefore I’m taking a break from working through this book and exploring a few other options on building free flight planes.